Ben Hanscom
Ben Hanscom is a member of the Losers Club. Background Physical Appearance As a kid, Ben is described as having short brown hair that spikes when it's wet (like when building the Dam) and is obese for his age. Despite being considered unappealing when smiling at one point, Ben's face has the "ghost of the handsome man he would become". As an adult (thanks to running the track team and eating right as a teen) Ben is tanned, lean and considered handsome by many men and women despite his face being weather-beaten. Ben's hair is graying slightly but he apparently looks ten years younger than his actual age. Ben's appearance is very inconsistent between the book and the two live-action adaptations. In the 1990 miniseries, as a kid Ben (Brandon Crane) is more bulky than fat and has blonde hair instead of brown. As an adult (John Ritter), Ben's appearance is a further departure from the book: He has a beard and though he's supposed to be thinner than he was a kid, Ben is noticeably more stout as an adult especially compared to Bill or Eddie. In the 2017 movie, Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) is much more accurate to the book, though Ben is still not nearly as large as he's described in the book. Ben is actually shorter than most of the boys (especially compared to Stan and Mike) and even Beverly though he is still taller than Eddie. Personality Biography 1958 The Barrens The House On Neibolt Street (Novel only) 1985 Returning to Derry Derry Library Under the City (II) Under the City (I) Appearances Television ''It'' (1990) Films 2017 film As school lets out for summer, Ben is getting his bike while listening to a New Kids On The Block song when Beverly steps out and asks if he's going to let her pass or if there's a secret password; he promptly apologizes, and clumsily drops his display. Beverly tells him that Henry Bowers and his cronies are by the west entrance, so he's safe. Curious about what he's listening to, Beverly takes his headphones and puts them on, and after identifying the singers, jokes around with him about being "The New Kid" before introducing herself, though Ben knows her because they're both in social studies, and she signs his yearbook. Later that day, Ben is in the library reading about Derry's history. He then notices a red balloon floating through the room and follows it, discovering a trail of eggs leading to the basement. Suddenly a headless boy walks down the stairs towards Ben, who flees, bumping into an elderly librarian. As he leaves the library, Ben is ambushed by Henry and his gang, who take him to a bridge, which they call the "Kissing Bridge", and torture him before Henry pulls a knife and starts carving his name on Ben's stomach; Ben kicks Henry in the crotch, causing him to fall backwards over the bridge and go rolling down the hill. Henry and his thugs give chase, with Henry losing his knife in the process. He orders Reginald and Patrick to go after Ben while he and Vic search for his knife. Ben races through the river, eventually collapsing from exhaustion at the sewer entrance, where he meets up with Bill, Richie, Eddie, and Stanley. The four take Ben to an alley, where Richie is left to look after him, while Bill, Eddie, and Stan go to the pharmacy to acquire some supplies with a little help from Beverly, who drops in on them as they are attending to Ben's wound. The next day, Ben, Bill, Eddie, Richie, and Stan go to the quarry to go swimming, first spitting over the edge of the cliff to see how far it goes, when Beverly unexpectedly joins the five. After a round of swimming, the six relax on the rocks, where the boys watch Beverly as she is sunbathing, but turn away when she turns towards them. Richie looks in Ben's backpack, finding a postcard that he intends to give to Beverly, and a notebook with Derry's history. Ben explains that Derry is different from the other towns he's been to, because people disappear or die six times the national average, with kids being the more common victims. The six then go to Ben's house, where he shows them more of Derry's history, particularly the town's origins, and Beverly exposes his interest in the New Kids on the Block. The next day, when Beverly summons Bill, Ben, Eddie, Richie, and Stan to her apartment after blood shot out of the sink the other night, Richie is left to keep watch while Ben and the others follow Beverly into her apartment and assist her with cleaning the bathroom; while doing so, Ben starts to become slightly jealous that Bill also has feelings for Beverly. While rescuing Mike Hanlon from Henry shortly afterwards, Ben, still enraged about Henry tortured him, throws a rock at him in his anger, leading to a rock war. Around the 4th of July, Bill, Beverly, Ben, Mike, and Stan are talking about how kids disappearing appears to be all too common as of late when Eddie and Richie join them. Ben explains that he pieced together all of his Derry research and discovered something interesting: the major casualty events from the town's past (the Ironworks explosion in 1908, the Bradley gang in 1935, and the Black Spot in 1962) only happen every twenty-seven years. They all talk about things that scare them. At Bill's house, they examine the map of Derry, and discover that the locations where the incidents occurred are connected by the sewers, and meet up at the Well House on Neibolt street. When Pennywise attacks them all of a sudden, Bill decides that it's time to take action and goes to the house alone; Ben, Beverly, and the others try to stop him, to no avail. While Eddie and Richie go inside with Bill, Ben and the others wait outside. Bill, Eddie, and Richie are separated and ambushed by Pennywise. Luckily, Ben, Beverly, Stan, and Mike step in to defend them by stabbing the clown. However, he slashes Ben across the stomach in retaliation. After fleeing from the Well House and bringing Eddie home, where his mom blames them for his arm being broken and forbids them from seeing Eddie again, they argue about their incursion at the Well House, with Beverly pointing out that like Ben said, Pennywise returns every twenty-seven years; Ben says that he’ll be in another safer town, then as Richie and Stan defect from the group out of anger towards Bill, Ben and Mike leave as well. Ben then goes back to spending time in the library as usual. But, when Beverly is captured by Pennywise in August, Ben reunites with his friends to save her. They journey down into the sewers and locate Pennywise’s Lair, where they find Beverly, entranced and levitating after looking at It’s true form. Ben pulls Beverly down with assistance from Mike and Richie, then desperately tries to awaken her, which doesn’t work, then kisses her, thereby reviving her. Beverly glances at Ben, then recites the poem from the postcard he gave her “January embers”; Ben follows up “My heart burns there, too.” Richie, finding it to be amusing and very touching, laughs and embraces both Ben and Beverly, as do Eddie, Stan, and Mike. Relieved that Beverly is safe now, the six of them catch up with Bill while he talks with ”Georgie”, ultimately learning that it’s a trap and shoots him, revealing him to be Pennywise. Ben and the others are easily brushed off by It, and he takes Bill hostage, promising to spare them in exchange. They refuse to back down and fight back, defeating Pennywise. Afterwards, Ben and the others join Bill in mourning for his brother when he finds his tattered raincoat. In September, Ben willingly agrees to the vow that if Pennywise returns, then the kids will reunite and eradicate him for good. He is the last of the boys to leave afterwards. It: Chapter Two As an adult, Ben has lost weight and has started an architect business called Hanscom Architecture in upstate New York. In the middle of a meeting, Ben suddenly gets a phone call from his old friend Mike Hanlon to return to Derry. Reuniting with the gang at a Chinese restaurant, the memories of the summer of 1989 start to come back to them. Richie and Eddie are reluctant to deal with Pennywise again until Beverly and Mike explain that they must honor the pact that they made back then, and they’ll die if they back down or quit. Learning about the Ritual of Chüd, a means of annihilating It, and that it requires items from their childhood, Ben discovers that his item is his yearbook page with Beverly’s signature, which he had been keeping in his wallet, while the others search the town looking for their items. Returning to Pennywise’s Lair in the Well House, they descend deeper into a cave containing the meteor that brought It to Earth, and perform the Ritual, burning their items in a vessel stolen from the tribe that originally performed it. But, much to their dismay, the Ritual fails to kill It, who forces Mike to admit that It killed the tribe, then takes the form of a colossal spider, then puts Bill, Beverly, and Ben in frightening predicaments: Bill witnessing his younger self telling Georgie he pretended to be sick that day, with Ben getting trapped in the Losers’ clubhouse as he is getting buried in dirt, while Beverly is locked in a bathroom stall, about to be drowned in blood. As Bill escapes by getting over his guilt about Georgie’s death, Ben reveals his feelings for Beverly and admits he wrote the love letter for her and she rescues him. After finding out they can destroy Pennywise by making him feel less powerful than he is, Ben, Beverly, Bill, Mike, and Richie proceed to mock him; their teasing causes him to shrink until he gets small enough for them to rip his heart out and crush it, causing It to perish. After escaping from the collapsing cave and the Well House, the group, minus Eddie, who died during the final battle, go swimming at the lake, then go their separate ways again; Ben and Beverly get married, Bill improves his new novel, Richie carves Eddie’s name at the Kissing Bridge as a memorial for his late friend, and Mike moves out of Derry to start a new life. Relationships Bill Denbrough Beverly Marsh Ben knows Beverly due to them both being in Social Studies class, and they both seem to have a thing for each other; Beverly tends to make references to New Kids on the Block because of Ben being called “the New Kid”. Richie Tozier Eddie Kaspbrak Stanley Uris Mike Hanlon Quotes Gallery Trivia Differences from the source material Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Live-action characters Category:Stephen King's It Category:Warner Bros. characters Category:Humans Category:Supporting characters Category:Kids Category:Teenagers Category:Stephen King's It characters Category:Heroes Category:American characters Category:Adults Category:Lorimar characters Category:Sidekicks Category:New Line Cinema characters Category:Students Category:Husbands